Deborah
Mailman and Toni Collette (rear) with some of the cast of Mental.
Philippa Hawker, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports
Eighteen years after Muriel Heslop dreamed of a world beyond
Porpoise Spit, the Muriel's
Wedding team is back. Writer-director P.J. Hogan and Toni Collette
are reunited in Mental,
a new movie that will be the closing night attraction at this year's Melbourne
International Film Festival.
Mental, says MIFF's artistic director, Michelle Carey, is the perfect
closing feature. ''I came out of it feeling quite a buzz, and I think audiences
will too. It's raucous and hilarious, but also really moving.'' Collette plays
a hitchhiker, Shaz, who is hired by a philandering politician, Barry Moochmore
(Anthony LaPaglia) to look after his five daughters while his wife, Shirley
(Rebecca Gibney), is in hospital. It's a film, says Carey, that asks ''how
society thinks about mental illness, and where mental illness ends and
eccentricity begins''.
The movie is ''almost like a western, with Collette as a stranger
who comes into a suburban home, turns it upside down and changes the lives of
everyone around her'', she says.
MIFF, which runs from August 2 to 19, launched its full program
yesterday. Several Australian features are screening, including Jack Irish - Bad Debts,
starring Guy Pearce, which is the first of a series of ABC adaptations of the
crime novels of Peter Temple. There will be a Bollywood-themed party following
the world premiere of Save
Your Legs, written by Brendan Cowell and directed by Boyd Hicklin.
This feature is based on the real-life exploits of a suburban cricket team
whose members tour India, dreaming of glory, only to face defeat. ''And,'' says
Carey ''it's great that Melbourne audiences will have the chance to see Amiel
Courtin-Wilson's Hail,''
after the drama screened at Adelaide, Venice and Rotterdam festivals.
The Age is a festival sponsor.
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